Why is K98.5 doing this?

[JerseyShor]

K98.5 is doing MONMOUTH and Ocean news updates.

98.5 is a station licenced to Ocean Acres in Southern Ocean County.

98.5 transmits from Manahawkin in Southern Ocean County.

98.5 may bleed into Monmouth County a little bit, but ratings don't come from radio geeks with DXing gear 50 miles away.

98.5 puts a BETTER SIGNAL into Cherry Hill than it does Freehold, maybe they should start doing CAMDEN COUNTY and Ocean County news updates!

 

[SoulCrusher]

K98.5 is doing MONMOUTH and Ocean news updates.

98.5 is a station licenced to Ocean Acres in Southern Ocean County.

98.5 transmits from Manahawkin in Southern Ocean County.

98.5 may bleed into Monmouth County a little bit, but ratings don't come from radio geeks with DXing gear 50 miles away.

98.5 puts a BETTER SIGNAL into Cherry Hill than it does Freehold, maybe they should start doing CAMDEN COUNTY and Ocean County news updates!

It may transmit from Manahawkin, but don't they broadcast / pipe in the music from Neptune, just like all the other Press properties?

My only guess is that maybe they don't target Camden so much because they know they would be going head to head with Cat Country and WXTU in that area.

But hey - who cares about us nobodies in Ocean County? We have yet another duplicate of a format that comes in loud and clear, and if there's any difference between K-98.5 and Cat Country, I have yet to find it (oh yeah ... the latter has personalities). The format choice alone shows you that they're more concerned with what Monmouth is missing than filling one of Ocean's format holes.

 

[dkocolin]

Actually, I've found K985 plays more of a new/old mix than Cat Country. I'd compare them more to XTU in their format than PUR.

 

[dbrandsema]

K985 is absolutely better than cat country.Soul Crusher has no clue....cat country is standard 40 playlist ho hum music with no risks taken and no originality.Its because if them i went to Sirius.And usually a small market station is able to be different.i Think that because the ratings were so good that gave them a pass to create.K985 plays the stuff we 40 yr old converts who listened in the 90's love.If you called in to Cat and asked for a Mark Chestnutt or Tracy Lawrence song they would give you ''WE DONT PLAY THEM'' But offer to play Chesney or Rascal Flatts.PUKE!!!!! Someone at the cat must be listening to K because now they started playing the older stuff.I laugh...too late.....GOOD LUCK K985

 

[tom]

I'm not a country fan - but I took the liberty of looking up
Mark Chesnutt and Tracy Lawrence on the Cat Country
system - and they have many songs by each of those
artists, and they have been played thousands of times
since the station came on the air, including today.

They aren't likely to tweak their format in response to
a new station that can't be heard in Atlantic County.

 

[SoulCrusher]

I'm not a country fan - but I took the liberty of looking up
Mark Chesnutt and Tracy Lawrence on the Cat Country
system - and they have many songs by each of those
artists, and they have been played thousands of times
since the station came on the air, including today.

They aren't likely to tweak their format in response to
a new station that can't be heard in Atlantic County.

Well, based on the proximity of their transmitter, I would think that they come in better in Atlantic County than they do in Monmouth. It's closer to Atlantic City than Asbury Park, that's for sure.

It's not too hard to see why Press moved one of its frequencies up north and picked the Country format. Pretty much every format is covered in Atlantic City / Cape May, for starters. Second, Press picked a format that wouldn't hurt its 2 (or 4) other FM stations. Forget about the holes that exist in the market, and let's just hope that people listen to our Country station. I guarantee you that the FM dial would be a lot more interesting if the 1996 Telecommunications Act was repealed and there were more than 3 FM radio outlets in Monmouth/Ocean. Instead, we have multiple AC, Classic Rock and Country stations - who needs all of them?

 

[Starscream]

I'm not a country fan - but I took the liberty of looking up
Mark Chesnutt and Tracy Lawrence on the Cat Country
system - and they have many songs by each of those
artists, and they have been played thousands of times
since the station came on the air, including today.

They aren't likely to tweak their format in response to
a new station that can't be heard in Atlantic County.

FWIW, Marc Chestnutt's version of "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" is terrific. I have a soft spot for the Aerosmith version, but Chestnutt's stripped-down version is great too.

 

[eatspaste]

K985 is absolutely better than cat country.Soul Crusher has no clue....cat country is standard 40 playlist ho hum music with no risks taken and no originality.Its because if them i went to Sirius.And usually a small market station is able to be different.i Think that because the ratings were so good that gave them a pass to create.K985 plays the stuff we 40 yr old converts who listened in the 90's love.If you called in to Cat and asked for a Mark Chestnutt or Tracy Lawrence song they would give you ''WE DONT PLAY THEM'' But offer to play Chesney or Rascal Flatts.PUKE!!!!! Someone at the cat must be listening to K because now they started playing the older stuff.I laugh...too late.....GOOD LUCK K985

Maybe you should turn off Sirius and actually listen to the two stations you're posting about.

According to yes.net, Cat Country has played both Mark Chesnutt and Tracy Lawrence in the past 24 hours. Rascal Flatts and Kenny Chesney are two of the hottest groups/people in country music today! With the exception of WSM, no country station should be ignoring them!

Comparing K to Cat Country is like comparing red apples to green apples. Sure, they're both "country" stations, but the two have completely different tastes. Cat in Atlantic City is very similiar to Cat Country in Allentown: both are very uptempo, hot sounding, high energy presentations with current-based music to attract a younger audience with some 1990's gold.

Meanwhile, K is completely different, more WXTU-like: down-tempo, low energy, lots of older music to go after Ocean County's world famous senior citizen crowd. Sounds like K is going after the 35-64 age group (along with the Breeze and WOBM). If you think Cat isn't taking any risks or is boring, there's no way you can say K is cutting edge or fresh sounding. The only thing they spell with a K is Konsultant.

Like the other guy said, Cat is not responding to K98.5, they've always played some 1990's music. Why would or should they? You can't hear 98.5 in Atlantic City-Cape May as they are directional away from 98.3 in Ocean City. That would be like B101 in Philly tweaking 'cause WLEV in Allentown did something.

Speaking of 98.5, did I hear them giving away tickets to Toby Keith's new movie today? For a showing at a movie theater in North Brunswick?

 

[dbrandsema]

North Brunswick is the only theatre in NJ that has Tobys movie.It is a limited release in the east.I listened for 5 years to the CAT after YNY went off the air.I know all about demographics and very aware of how big Chesney and RF are,I enjoy them both,but I started to despise the 40 song playlist over and over, which exists in all radio formats, thats the rule.My point is that country music artists have the largest library of songs of any music genre,they put out an album every year,so with choices like that it is very upsetting to hear the same songs played.And yes, recently I have heard those artist played, but in the past it was very rare if at all.I am a 12 hour a day listener on the road,and nothing was ever played outside the list,and I made numerous request for certain artists and songs and was told that we dont play that anymore, and if we did people would complain.Complain about hearing ''RING OF FIRE'' ? i think not,they were just too lazy to take risks.I am not saying that k985 will be any different, its just that now they are and its very refreshing.Just about evry country fan I work with has on their own found k985 better and have switched from the CAT.If your not a true diehard country fan you dont get it what we mean.Its the best music being produced today and its a shame to limit its appeal.I have listented to both, all day, back and forth.I do not make statements that have no merit,unlike some who say they look up playlists and dont listen at all and are experts.Believe me I prefer my satellite over FM any day but i Do like the local feel you get with radio.Funny you mention WSM i have that on my Sirius,what a dream come true.

 

[tom]

Enjoy your Sirius while you can ... they lost $ 863 million dollars last year.
How long is that gonna continue before they shut down ?
(XM only lost $ 667 million ... wow)

 

[dbrandsema]

Quote from: Tom McNally on Yesterday at 09:18:51 am
I'm not a country fan - but I took the liberty of looking up
Mark Chesnutt and Tracy Lawrence on the Cat Country
system - and they have many songs by each of those
artists, and they have been played thousands of times
since the station came on the air, including today. This is the genius who responded by not being a listener but by looking up stats on the internet.Hey,any business can fail, hopefully Satellite will survive,otherwise its back to FM and 40 songs and 40 minutes of commercial in an hour

 

[Bogotaboy]

I can't see how anyone who listens to Satellite could ever go back to or even listen to FM again.I rented a car last year and was stuck with Q104 instead of Classic Rewind,I think they played the same Billy Joel song that I heard them play the last time I had them on a few months prior.But thats Classic Rock radio..no album cuts..no new music..no risks.Hopefully radio will go the way of the 8 track....to obscurity

 

[damian542]

Quote from: Tom McNally on Yesterday at 09:18:51 am
I'm not a country fan - but I took the liberty of looking up
Mark Chesnutt and Tracy Lawrence on the Cat Country
system - and they have many songs by each of those
artists, and they have been played thousands of times
since the station came on the air, including today. This is the genius who responded by not being a listener but by looking up stats on the internet.Hey,any business can fail, hopefully Satellite will survive,otherwise its back to FM and 40 songs and 40 minutes of commercial in an hour

Tom works at the company that owns Cat, he looked it up in the on-air system itself (I'm sure).... look... the person who posted about the 1996 Telecom act is 100% right.... Companies that own radio stations are not going to compete against themselves with similar formats, and they are going to be reluctant to take a small slice of a format (Hot Country, or Bluegrass)... everyone wants the big piece of the pie (AC, CHR, Rock)... everything else is just a piece of a piece.... I think Sirius and XM will survive, so on that point I disagree with Tom... I believe they were set for losses of this kind, and will survive... but only time will tell....